


Stranden

by phyripo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 07:44:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14131395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phyripo/pseuds/phyripo
Summary: Torbjörn and Søren finally catch up with the killer they have been chasing through two countries, but this is not how Søren imagined it would go.





	Stranden

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unusual thing for me to put on AO3 because I usually keep short stuff to tumblr ([here](http://phyripo.tumblr.com/post/172251168421/8586-sweden-denmark)) but I... like this one a lot. I would really like to write a full Detective Story with den and sve,, one day when I figure out how to write mystery. I assume this scene won't feature in that on e
> 
> This is mainly inspired by The Bridge/Bron/Broen (hence the stupid title which means The Beach in both Swedish and Danish) (and incidentally Beaches in Dutch) which is a pretty well-known Swedish-Danish crime series? It's good but I like Midnattssol more, which is Swedish-French. So yeah!
> 
> Torbjörn is Sweden and Søren is Denmark! :D

It was not supposed to end like this.

A shot rings out over the waves, and Søren’s side blooms with pain, hot as a branding iron stabbed into his skin. He can hear footsteps crunching through the pebbles, Torbjörn’s angry Swedish becoming worried Swedish fast. His entire body shakes and he would have fallen if he weren’t already on the ground after diving for the man they have been chasing after all this time.

 _Fuck_ , it hurts. He manages to rip his gloves off and tries to find the wound, can feel hot blood soaking his coat, but his fingers are too unsteady.

“Søren?” Torbjörn is asking, with that funny musical lilt he gives the name. “Søren, don’t move.”

“I don’t think I fucking  _can_ ,” he replies, with effort. His Swedish colleague appears in his field of vision, replacing the too-bright sky and the eternal seagulls overhead. His glasses are askew. “Did—”

“He got away. Doesn’t matter,” the man replies to the unspoken question, and Søren wants to swear but he can only hiss in pain when Torbjörn  _does_  find the wound and presses the fabric of his shirt down on it. The seagulls might be gone, but there are black spots dancing all around in front of his eyes, and he goes cross-eyed trying to follow them.

When Torbjörn straightens his glasses, his hand is stained red and he smudges them, which Søren should find horrifying but is hilarious to him for some reason.

“‘S why I wear lenses,” he slurs, trying to gesture but finding that his arm will not cooperate. The stones on the beach dig into his back, and isn’t it weird that he can feel that so clearly when someone is still poking that goddamn branding iron into his gut?

Torbjörn shakes his head. Ha, maybe he didn’t understand. He isn’t so bad, but his Swedish colleagues keep complaining about Søren’s Danish. Or Danish in general.

“You’re a good… A good boy,” Søren tells him, gasping halfway through the sentence. “But not a boy, y’know. Like, a man. Very manly.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Can’t, y’know me.”

He shakes his head again, or at least Søren thinks so, because focusing is difficult and he decides to close his eyes instead.

They’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but for some reason, he really clicked with the stern Swedish detective. The gruff exterior belies a compassionate man, who is – always a plus in Søren’s book – willing to reconsider what exactly the rules mean when push comes to shove. Even if he often doesn’t know how to hold himself and scared a witness that one time by looming too much, he is absolutely a nice benefit of the Swedish-Danish cooperation they’ve had going on. Easy on the eyes, too, when opening them isn’t too difficult.

Søren thinks that he maybe likes his colleague a bit too much. It’s never seemed like much of a problem until now.

But then what does anything matter when there’s blood pouring out of him at an alarming rate and the seagulls are waiting to fucking eat him on some godforsaken beach in  _Sweden_?

“Seagulls aren’t gonna eat you,” Torbjörn informs him, matter-of-fact, and apparently he’s saying things aloud.

Okay.  _Great_ , Nordskov. Good. Dying with dignity, what’s that?

“You won’t die,” Torbjörn says now. His deep voice, familiar after the many hours spent together, has taken on an edge Søren doesn’t know, and doesn’t think he likes.

“Dunno, kinda feels like it.”

His stomach is numb and alive with white-hot pain at the same time, and everything is way too quiet while Torbjörn presses down on it.

If there’s one thing Søren can’t stand, it’s silence. Torbjörn has been happy enough to let him talk at him throughout their investigation, let him work through the mess of clues and questions and answers in his head with only the barest minimum of interruptions. They’ve gotten so close to the man who has killed four Danes and six Swedes and has hospitalized at least twenty more, who’s fucking kidnapped  _children_ , because they work well together. Søren functions better when he can talk.

That shouldn’t be true when he’s been shot. And yet, here he is.

“Look,” he says to Torbjörn, wrenching his eyes back open and searching out the light blue he’s become so used to having around through the haze.

“Don’t,” he warns, but Søren coughs and continues anyway, trying desperately to ignore that that cough felt like someone trying to rip his intestines out. He’s good at things like that.

“Look, I know you’re prob’bly gonna say that was a stupid thing. To do.”

The familiar glare registers, and he grins with lips tasting like copper, the skin on them cracking. Why are his hands so cold? Is this what the Swedes call summer?

“Y’know, dying with you here isn’t th’worst way to go.”

Torbjörn shakes his head.

“‘N don’t tell me I’m not gonna die, ‘s just how it is.”

“No,” he replies, shifting his hands. There’s blood on his face, and dirt, and he let the killer get away to help Søren instead like an idiot, but then Søren would probably have been dead by now without him, would maybe have been dead days into their acquaintance if it weren’t for him, the stupid, beautiful Swede…

It’s suddenly important that Torbjörn  _knows_. That Søren can make him understand what he means to him.

“He was aiming f’you, Torbjörn.”

“I know. You’re an idiot for reacting the way you did.”

He’s slipped back into his northern accent rather than the affected Malmø one even Søren could hear was fake. That probably means something, but while Søren can identify the change without problem, for whatever fucking reason, he can’t connect it to a deeper meaning. It’s so cold.

“‘M not gonna apologize f’saving your life.” He coughs again. Clenches his teeth. Copper, but no blood in his mouth. Is that good? It seems like it should be good. “Even ‘f it costs me my own. ‘S all worth it.”

Torbjörn looks up at something, maybe hearing something Søren can’t hear, because he can only hear those fucking seagulls and his own heart trying to pump all the remaining blood in his body round at top speed. But when Torbjörn looks back down, Søren can hear him too. His heavy breathing, the rattling in his chest as if he’s trying not to cry.

“Tell me when you get better, Søren. The ambulance is almost here.”

He hacks a laugh, digs his numb fingers into Torbjörn’s thigh because it’s right there and he’s wanted to touch all of him for quite a while now, although preferably with less clothes on and maybe more with his tongue or something.

“I won’t apologize,” he slurs again. “‘Cause y’know, ‘s been an honor t’work with you, ‘n you’re, like, hot, ‘n…”

He tries to blink but his eyes stay shut, and everything is so fucking  _cold_.

“You’re worth it ‘cause I think ‘m in love with you,” he says, or thinks he says anyway. It’s difficult to make sense of anything.

Still, he’s sure that before he gives into the cold and feels himself slide into an endless sea of darkness, where even the seagulls won’t keep him company, he hears Torbjörn mumble, “I love you too.”

But then, maybe that’s heaven calling.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's Malmö and not Malmø but it's Malmø when written from a Dane's perspective :'D


End file.
